


shattered

by CheerfullyCynical



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Dark, Dialogue Light, F/M, Gen, Medical Procedures, Regeneration, The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who) Friendship, The Doctor - Freeform, The Master saves the Doctor, Violence, the timeless child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23163604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerfullyCynical/pseuds/CheerfullyCynical
Summary: Was the Timeless Child, raised as a lab rat, meant to die as one?XxXxXxXxXxXxXxA character study of the Doctor in prison, as well as some plot. The fam, with guest appearances, have to save her eventually, after all.RUSSIAN TRANSLATION: https://ficbook.net/readfic/9286280 .
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 263





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is dark. It's a character study, with a bit of plot. WARNINGS: Medical torture (not too violent and not a lot of detail) and a bit of the prison guards being rough (hurting the Doctor but not graphic).
> 
> RUSSIAN TRANSLATED: https://ficbook.net/readfic/9286280 
> 
> Shout out to the user Non for taking the time to do such an amazing thing!!!

The loneliness was getting to the Doctor.

The quiet, the ten by ten space with the same four walls, the feeling of drifting lifelessly in space... She had never been claustrophobic, but it was going to be a possibility after this – _if_ there was an after this.

While the threat of claustrophobia clawed at her, her thoughts made an even more desperate attempt to draw her into insanity. They whispered to her constantly now, new and old voices, of her now and her of a past she didn’t even know, begging for the feelings – _all of them –_ to stop.

There was a pain in her hearts that she couldn’t describe. Before – before the Master and his plot – she could just barely handle the pain of the Time War; of her actions against her own people. _She_ did them, after all. She had justifications and excuses to lean on as guilt pierced her soul, running as fast as her TARDIS could take her to avoid her many mistakes.

That was a loneliness she could ( _had to_ ) deal with, and it was lessoned by her friends.

 _This –_ This never-ending question of ‘why her’ that left her feeling empty inside? This was not something she could handle, especially without the distraction of her fam.

_Her fam._

She wondered again what they were doing. She could see them, clear as day in her mind, all of them with starry-eyed looks as she brought them to new planets. It was an image she kept in her mind, of all her companions, to remind herself why she invited them in the first place.

But this time, she was left wondering if they had given up hope on her. She had gotten them home in one piece, something she couldn’t say for some, but it was not a happy ending for them. Two weeks here, at least five days back on Earth for them. Did they give up on her in those five days?

The Doctor opened her eyes, unwilling to imagine a funeral service for herself. That was a grim image, even for her.

Her thoughts moved on once again, constantly in disarray. Instead of the smiling image of her fam, it was instead replaced with the sneering face of the Master in the Matrix.

His fury was contagious, especially when his smugness trumped his slyness. He was so _confident_ in the Matrix, convinced that she would be broken and shattered into pieces at the information he contained. It was _infuriating._

But her anger at him disappeared with the reminder that her friend perished with the rest of her planet.

This time, she truly believed that he was dead. This time, the grief was multiplied tenfold with the knowledge that Gallifrey was in ruins, beyond even being a planet.

She looked straight ahead, blurry eyes filled with tears barely registering that she was once again facing the one, small window. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her just how long she hasn’t eaten. A Time Lord (if she could even call herself that now) could last a long time without food, roughly two months, but water was essential. Two weeks without a drop of it wasn’t doing her any favors. If her chapped lips were anything to go by, she only had a couple more days before she moved right along to coma.

Perhaps they wanted her dead. One less prisoner to worry about.

Jokes on them, however. She would just regenerate – possibly forever. How many lives did it take for her to fulfill her life sentence?

Footsteps were coming by her door. In four minutes, nearly on the dot, a new rotation of the guards would commence. She had to listen carefully each time new footsteps joined a patrol, just in case she got desperate enough to try and escape her cell. She was still coming up with how to escape a literal floating rock in space.

The door? A piece of cake, as her humans would say. Pry open the panel to the left of the control from the outside and connect two wires together. Getting passed three armed guards? Worse odds, but easy enough if she ran fast enough. Trying to pilot a rock that had no controls on it whatsoever and the one means of escape was when another prisoner was dropped off? Much, _much_ harder.

The four minutes had passed in the time she reviewed seventy-eight percent of her plan. However, instead of the new footsteps continuing their journey along the rows of cells, they stopped directly at her cell door.

It opened with a loud bang, causing her to startle into a standing position. The guard, the same species of her old friend Vastra, looked at her with distain. Judging by his displeased eyes and flared nostrils, she didn’t smell good. Not having a shower for two weeks would do that.

“Prisoner 8-5-1,” He said, “You will be allowed ten minutes with soap and water. Any sort of resistance will result in food privileges taken away. Any hostile actions will lead to a more severe punishment. Do you understand?”

“So you _were_ going to feed me then,” She said, unable to help herself. No contact with any being would do that to you, “Weren’t trying to starve me out? Also, 8-5-1? Really? How many prisoners do you have here?”

“You’re one of _those_ prisoners, I see.” The man said, hand going towards his stun gun. Another guard, this time a Judoon, appeared behind the Silurian. He looked angry as well.

Why couldn’t she hold her tongue for once in her life?

The Silurian stared at her ruthlessly, looking her up and down with calculating eyes. “No food or water for three more days.”

She didn’t curse often, but a rather forbidden Gallifreyan word sprung to mind. Instead of saying anything, she glared at the man. Her pride (who knew this regeneration was so prideful?) was something she was unwilling to give up.

And with that horrible announcement, and another glare, the man turned around and left without another word. The Judoon eyed her, but also made his leave, this time closing the door. Another second passed, and then a metal bucket was pushed in through what she could only call a cat door.

This time, a human curse word made its way out of her mouth.

She made her way over to it, frustrated to see that it already had soap in it. If it didn’t, she would certainly break the imposed punishment and drink it. Instead, she pushed her hands into it and washed her face.

The water was freezing cold, causing goosebumps to appear on her skin. She shivered, but she was persistent. The slimy feeling of being dirty was getting too unbearable. She lifted various parts of her clothes, her back to the security camera, and quickly washed. Finally, and with a deep breath, she dunked her head, shivering violently now.

She moved away from the water, sliding herself back down the side of the wall as she rinsed out her hair the best she could. It would certainly be nicer to be a man right about now. _Way_ less hair. She used her fingers to comb it as well as do her best to get most of the soap out. Her clothes were virtually soaked, but she would die before she walked around naked.

She thought for a moment, even with the shivering, that she would fall asleep. Instead, just as she felt herself fall into it, the door slammed open once again. Without any warning, a bucket of freezing cold water was dumped on her.

She cried out, more out of shock then anything, only for it to happen once again. Voices muttered around her, but she was too busy bringing her arms around her body, trying in vain to warm herself. She was breathing harshly, taking in large gulps of air, curled into a ball. Even with the shock, she was licking her lips constantly, taking in as much water as possible.

The two guards were talking, this time to her, but she couldn’t hear over the roar in her ears. She was _too cold._ She would have done anything to feel just a bit of warmth.

Because her eyes were closed, there was not a single warning of what happened next. The Silurian crudely grabbed her by her wet hair, dragging her up into a kneeling position before she even knew what her body was doing.

“Are you listening now, prisoner?”

The Doctor’s eyes flashed open, fury buried deep within her coming to light. There was a reason she was called the Oncoming Storm, once upon a lifetime. The cold, one second ago deliberating, was now a weapon.

She ignored the heavy pull on her hair. Instead, she pulled her legs out from underneath herself, feeling satisfaction as she managed to sweep the bastard’s legs out from under him. It was a dirty trick, taught to her long ago in the Academy for emergency purposes, but it did the job just fine.

The Judoon raised his stun gun as his partner went down. To her horror, he aimed and fired without a second thought.

Electricity hurt. She knew that from the amount of times she had fixed the TARDIS. 50,000 volts ran through her system, causing her muscles to tense and twitch painfully. She went down without a sound, her hands just barely catching her fall.

When she came back to, her arms were being forced behind her back. Thick handcuffs were placed around her wrists, and she was being dragged to her feet. They were forcing her to walk out the cell door, down the long row of cells. She got glimpses of each prisoner, of other beings pacing back in forth, but it was cut out when a bag was thrown over her face. She was blind.

With a firm hand on both of her shoulders, bruising her, they took turn after turn, the Doctor getting so helplessly lost that she gave up trying to remember it. Instead, with her hearts beating loudly in her ears, she waited for whatever punishment they seemed fit.

There was a ‘ _whoosh’_ noise, to which she was just figuring out it was the sound of a door opening. The bag was ripped off her head, the lights above her nearly blinding. In the room, the same size of her cell, was a bed that looked ready to collapse on itself. They pushed her towards it, causing her to stumble, but luckily she did not fall. Instead, she was left standing tall in front of the bed.

She could have done without the shivering.

“Congratulations,” The Silurian said, dark red blood coming from his nose. _Good._ “You are the first prisoner to ever land themselves in the interrogation room after one conversation with me. You should be honored.”

“E-Ecstatic.” She replied, tone strong. She was not scared.

He sneered at her, “Obviously.” The Judoon handed a piece of laminated paper to the Silurian, who read it over slowly. She had never wanted to physically hurt another being as much as this before – to be so needlessly cruel didn’t deserve any kindness. She would know.

“Oh good,” he said finally, “It says here that you are of an unknown species. We’ll call Doctor Stevenson in, have some… _Tests._ I hope you understand that we can’t exactly get the most…Humane doctors here. We’re in the middle of nowhere, with no means of getting off this rock except once a month.”

She said nothing. She knew for a fact that they knew she was a Time Lord – after all, the Judoon would not have been able to find her without her DNA. Whoever this ‘doctor’ was, she imagined they were the reason it was called the interrogation room.

“Finally quiet, I see. Well done.”

She stared at him, knowing that she was glaring, but unable to stop it. She was _disgusted_ by him.

The Doctor had to get out of here.

“Knock it out.”

And with that, the Judoon once again took aim.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

She woke up in agony.

She took a deep breath of air out of instinct, only to get chocked up halfway through, causing her eyes to water. As she was coughing, she lifted her head, panicked now that she could see the heavy straps holding her in place. She was laying down on something hard and solid, eyes directly above a very well lit room.

She panicked. She thrashed wildly, trying with all her strength to lift her arm up. Instead, a pang went through it. On closer inspection, there was a large IV in the crook of her elbow.

She coughed again, her throat drier than sandpaper. She tried to relax her lungs, her respiratory bypass helping immensely. She moved her head up again, her eyes ignoring the IV, and instead looking for the source of the throbbing pain.

A large blood stain was on her stomach.

She let her head fall back on the table, trying to understand what had happened. She could feel it now – a stab wound, directly into her most vulnerable organs, slowly bleeding out.

The IV made sense - fluids and a blood transfusion.

But _why._ When did she get stabbed? Who stabbed her? So many questions running through her mind, none of them with any answers. She focused, listening for her sixth sense. Time swirled around her, letting her know that it had only been a couple hours since they had knocked her out. Someone had done this to her.

“Awake finally?”

 _Doctor Stevenson_. He was human-looking, but most certainly was not from her Fam’s time. The man was around sixty years old, and with a sniff and a bit of her Time Lord training, she learned that he was at least six hundred years past earth’s current time.

He was, well, ugly, with small, silver scars littering his face. Round, thick glasses covered his eyes. And, maybe the worst part, he was completely bald.

“What- What have you done to me?”

Doctor Stevenson smiled with yellowed teeth. Too cliché. “I am so glad you asked! When I heard they brought a Time Lord in? Oh my stars, I couldn’t _wait_ to meet you.”

He moved to the IV, looking it over. She felt sick, “You see, I’ve heard about you! My great-great grandfather was a big part of the UK government and he had these…Files, you see. They talked about an alien who could change their face, who was older than time itself. The only hint I got about them actually _existing_ was a title: Time Lord.”

The stab wound wasn’t nearly as painful as this.

“And then, the Judoon found me! They needed a doctor, and I wanted nothing more than off Earth, the cesspool that it is. I mean, what a _perfect_ opportunity. I’ve always wanted to travel, you see. And-And I’ve only been here for a couple of months! What are the chances that _you_ show up!”

He continued to fiddle with the IV bag. The machine beeped once at him, but he ignored it.

“And…Well…With your abilities? I had to see it myself.”

Her eyes widened. She wiggled her fingers, her toes, rolled her ankles and wrists. No, this was still _her_ body – the thirteenth regeneration. He had not yet forced that on her.

“Oh no, my dear,” Stevenson said, looking at her with oddly kind eyes, “I don’t want to _kill_ you. Who knows how many lives you have left? I can’t risk that. But…I can test the limits of it.”

“Tell me,” He asked, “How injured must you be to begin the process?”

“You can’t do this,” She said, truly scared. She had never been so scared before, “I have rights as-”

He laughed, loudly, insanely. The Master’s laugh couldn’t compare to something so shrill. “Oh, I see you’re a funny one! Rights…Please! You’re in a maximum security prison, my dear, with a life sentence. No one cares what happens to you.”

The words hurt the worst – the people she cared about, her family, thought she was dead. Everyone who had ever traveled with her – everyone that she had come in contact with ever throughout her life, all gone. She was alone.

“Ah,” Doctor Stevenson said, voice oddly gentle, “Figured it out, did you? Must be hard, knowing you’re all alone and, for you, _forever._ I almost pity you… _But_ there’s work to be done.”

And with no warning, he pressed down on the stab wound as hard as he could.

Her screams echoed in the room…And no one came to save her.

**Four months, three days, and seven hours in prison.**

It was the same schedule every single day. She was tired of it, but now also unfeeling – distant from reality. She often escaped into her mind, using her many adventures to entertain her as her body was manhandled and destroyed.

She was never hurt enough to cause a complete regeneration. It seemed Stevenson was skilled in the art of _just_ managing to kill her and save her.

He had officially witnessed regeneration energy, but has yet to capture it. It infuriated him. Sometimes she thought he would be angry enough to end it, but it never came.

“Why call yourself the Doctor?”

Her organs were in catastrophic failure from the prolonged exposure of Advil. Her lungs, especially, were screaming at her – breaths far too irregular. She didn’t have long now.

“Doctor.” She repeated, trying to remember, “It’s…A promise.”

The first truth she had told the man, and she died, and was reborn, with that promise on her lips.

**Four months, four days, and three hours.**

She was weak, but the regeneration process had stopped the organ failure. Now she was left empty and cold, constantly shivering. She maneuvered herself over to the measly pile of blankets they had left for her, curling around it as she tried to conserve her body heat.

The Sularian from before checked on her every hour, making sure she was still alive. Sometimes, when he was feeling nice, she would be led to a private shower, with the hottest water available. Even then, she was only allowed a couple of minutes bliss.

Today was not one of those days.

**Eight months, sixteen days, and nine hours.**

She had tried to escape yesterday – mostly with the idea that it would lead to a very permanent death in the vacuum of space. She had gotten pretty far, considering that she was suffering a myocardial infraction in one of her hearts.

Maybe the heart attack was the reason she had _just_ missed the button for the air lock release. Or maybe it was the Judoon’s stun guns.

The maybes didn’t matter – never mattered. The consequences? Another thing entirely. Her consequences were three days straight trapped on the table, no food or water, and non-stop testing. She learned her screams, loud and filled with pain, were met with laughter.

She hated humanity more than any other being in the universe.

**Nine months, twenty-two days, and three hours.**

She had told the doctor that she was the last of her kind. It was on a bleak day for her, with her mind scape nearly decimated. The faces of her companions were getting harder and harder to remember - the beauty of Gallifrey a fuzzy image rather than a lifetime of memories. The Master was always there, however. His first face, smiling at them without a hint of the insanity the Time Lords had thrust upon him. She missed him.

Stevenson took this news worse than she did. Equipment was thrown everywhere, sparks that caught her prisoner garb nearly igniting. He screamed and yelled, furious. He muttered that he would have to be more careful with her. ‘

“The secrets of immortality!” He screamed, “ _Just_ beyond my reach. I don’t care how long it takes, how many times I have to kill you and save you, I _will_ find a way.”

The Doctor closed her eyes, tears running down her face. Was this what had happened, all those years ago on Gallifrey? the _Shobogan_ people _,_ her own caretaker, had seen a power unlike any other and had twisted it to their own advantage. Had Tecteun tied her down as well? Had she killed her, over and over again, to achieve her goal?

Was the Timeless Child, raised as a lab rat, meant to die as one?

She didn’t speak after that day.

**Eleven months, two days, and four hours.**

She had begged the universe to take away her ability to see time. She no longer wished to know how long she was in hell. What was the point of counting the days if they were going to be the same?

When had the universe ever listened to her.

**Elven months, eighteen days, and ten hours.**

Stevenson was going insane.

She could see it, the same way she had seen her best friend descend the same path. The ticks, the wide eyes filled with a fire, and the talking to yourself…Yes, insanity was a good look on the old human.

Insanity did not weaken Stevenson’s vision. It fueled it.

She hardly left the table now. He would force her to walk twice a day, shower once a day. It was just enough to keep her body relatively healthy.

He had tried various ways to kill her, some painless and quick, others long and drawn out. None of them seemed to make Stevenson happy. Whatever he was looking for in her DNA, it was beyond his human understanding.

She would have told him he was too stupid to ever figure it out, but her mouth never opened. It seemed too much energy to spare.

**One year.**

The Doctor, the Timeless Child, had been allowed back to her cell for a week now.

Stevenson had finally committed to the act of killing her… And gone too far. He saw it, the moment she had smiled at him with blood in her mouth. She _was_ regenerating, completely and fully regenerating, and she reveled the look of fear on Stevenson’s face.

He had knocked her out with a powerful paralytic. He performed emergency surgery on her while she was in and out of consciousness. His hands worked between the bursts of regeneration energy, burning him, but he had managed to repair the tear on her aortic valve. The regeneration energy had fizzled and died the moment he had done so, healing her _just_ enough to keep her alive.

The Doctor sobbed when she woke up on the pile of filthy blankets, furious that he had won once again. She sobbed for everything she had lost, her friends and home, for a past she had no idea about. The tears continued even in her sleep.

And when she woke up in her cell instead of the hard, medical table, she shouted and screamed. She never said a word, only continued to rage as the guards came in, stunning her into submission.

After all, without the experimentations, there was no hope that she would die.

On the third day of waking up in her cell, she was silent. She was weak, unable to get up from her small sanctuary of warmth. She dreamed of happy thoughts, only for them to run at the first moment she latched on.

She longed to go insane. It never happened.

Six days of being in the cell. She was still too weak to move from her safe corner. She had never felt this much pain, deep in her soul and physically, and she found herself unwilling to deal with it.

On the seventh day, there was a noise.

There was a hush around her. Prisoners had gone quiet, whispering and muttering to each other. Something was coming.

She didn’t move – she didn’t care.

The whispers rose around her, soon turning to shouting. Voices overlapped each other, so loud that the Doctor was tempted to break her vow of silence and scream at them to shut up. Unlike the rest of the prisoners, she felt no reason to see what the commotion was about. She had had enough commotion to last her a lifetime.

“ _Doctor!”_

It was faint – so faint she should not have been able to hear it.

For a moment, the dim hope of going insane felt real. She laughed lightly, clasping her hands over her ears. Yes, let the voices come! Let her forget everything about _her –_ her lives, her memories, her emotions. Let them wash away.

_“Doctor! Where is the Doctor?”_

That was no voice inside of her mind. She moved her hands away from her ears, eyes fluttering as they adjusted to the lights around her. The room spun, but she was persistent.

Curiosity was always her strongest point.

“ _I’m the doctor!”_ A voice yelled, not her own, “ _Over here! Come on now, humans – no!”_

“Doctor?”

And then they were there.

Her Fam. Yaz, Graham, Ryan – all of them, standing in front of her, looking just as their images in her mind scape displayed. Though not smiles. No, they looked…Shocked.

Another person ran into view, breathing heavily, with a gun (she didn’t like guns) strapped to his back. “Did you find her?”

There was Jack Harkness, in the very flesh, looking just as young and vibrant as she remembered him to be. Nothing, and everything, had changed.

“Doc?” Graham asked, “Are you there?”

She laughed. It bubbled up in her, coming in short, ugly gasps. Tears filled her eyes, wondering if this was what insanity felt like. It wasn’t possible for them to be here, not now. She had finally cracked under the pressure.

“N-n-no.” She coughed, voice not used to being used, “N-not real.”

“Open the door.” Yaz said, “Open it, right now!”

Jack moved with a speed she didn’t know he processed. A device was revealed from his pocket, and he quickly placed it on the holographic door. It blinked once, in and out, and then the red glow disappeared entirely.

Freedom had never tasted so bland.

Yaz made it to her first, hands coming to rest on her shoulder. The Doctor relished in it, feeling the kind touch of another had never been more appreciated. The Doctor raised her hand, shakily bringing it to Yaz’s face. She could feel the physic pull of another being.

_Yaz was really here._

“Yaz,” She breathed, “Yasmin Khan.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Yaz said. She was crying. Why was she crying? “It’s me. I’m right here.”

The Doctor’s arm fell away, too weak to hold up by herself. Her eyes forcibly closed, too feeble to stay open for long. “My Fam.” She said, one last time, falling victim to the black that was surrounding her. She reached out with her mind, trying her best to keep track of the four humans that saved her life.

Jack picked her up, her head lolling lifelessly on his shoulder. The blankets, her only comfort in this small part of the universe, came lose.

It felt like chains breaking.

They were running, the next time she woke up. Feet and heartbeats pounding in union as they made their way through the various cells around them. Where they were running, she didn’t know. She only knew of warm arms protectively around her.

“… _Vortex manipulator!”_

_“Master, now! Hurry!”_

The world spun around her, the backlash of time slamming her body full force like a punch to the gut. The urge to vomit was thick. Time fizzled harshly on her skin, causing her to flinch violently. Was she regenerating?

“Deep breaths,” Someone was saying – a kind voice. “It’s over, Doctor. Can you take deep breaths for me?”

“Jack?” She asked, but only ended up coughing harshly. Blood, old blood, made it back up her throat and to the floor. She chocked harshly, knowing that it was directly from her lungs, but unable to stop the natural instinct.

She was placed on a comfortable surface – too comfortable to be any sort of cell. Where was she? Where had her Fam taken her?

“Back up. All of you, get out of my way.”

She knew that voice. Oh, Rassilon, she knew that voice.

“ _Koschei.”_

It gave her the strength to open her eyes, just for a moment. He was there, swarmed in the orange glow of his TARDIS, looking like the friend she remembered all those years ago.

Yet his face was scarred – a thin silver line went from his temple to the bottom of his eye. The eye itself was a lifeless silver. The Master had survived the explosion on Gallifrey but had not managed to do it unscathed.

That wasn’t fair.

“Hurt.” She whispered, hearts yearning.

“I know, love,” He said, voice gentle – softer than she had heard it in centuries. “I know you’re hurt. I’m going to fix it.”

“No.” She said, shaking her head, arm once again moving. She touched his face, fingers combing his hair, and her thumb tracing the painful injury. He flinched in her hand but let her touch him. Her arm shook with the effort, so he grabbed her hand and kept it on his face for her.

She felt the pull of regeneration energy sparking to life. This time, she let it peacefully flow through her, igniting her skin. It stayed in her hand, passing over to the Master with a gasp from both of them.

When she was strong enough to open her eyes, he was still there. His face was returned to him, as it should be, and he looked like the world had come crashing down on him.

_Stay with me. Please stay with me, Theta._

His voice echoed in her mind. It felt like a reunion – filled with excitement and anxious nerves.

_Always._


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who commented! You really made my day and helped me continue this story.

The Master was restless.

He had recovered from his injury, only mildly thankful that he had escaped Gallifrey’s true destruction with his tenth regeneration. Being blinded in one eye wasn’t what he had ever imagined would happen to him, but he had certainly dealt with worse things. He considered killing himself, getting him a proper body, but that seemed wasteful, even for him.

He visited random planets in his rage. He would gain the trust of the people, showering them with gifts and other worldly possessions, only to take them away as violently as he could. He watched them as they burned, just as Gallifrey did.

A small part of him always hoped the Doctor would show up to lecture him.

She never did.

That only caused the rage to build – it burned his skin, boiled his blood. The desire to _hurt_ , to make someone feel the same as he did. He blackened more and more planets, justification never coming.

He never felt _better._ He never felt satisfied, or full, or beyond the point of numb.

When he would catch himself in the mirror, broken and grotesque, he was unable to look away. The monster had finally been personified. Soon enough, every mirror in the TARDIS has been shattered.

He wondered, through all the chaos that he made, through his own reflection, if his actions finally driven him to the point of unforgivable. Was the burning of Gallifrey, the destruction of the Time Lords, really where the Doctor drew the line?

He never did find the answer.

He stopped his destruction at one point. With no one there to appreciate his work, it seemed counterproductive. Instead, he spent his days in his TARDIS, building and destroying his creations, passing time.

His hatred for the Doctor passed. Slowly, very slowly, but it soon transformed into grief. She had been his greatest friend. Though she always acted _special,_ she was a child with that attitude. What new being didn’t think themselves unique?

Which led him to his biggest problem: his revenge should have only been for the Time Lords, not the child forced into such a life.

He missed the drumbeats. At least they made more sense.

It was three months after the destruction of Gallifrey that something exciting finally happened.

A human, the one he had trapped on the Valiant back when he was earth’s prime minister (oh, the good days) – his name insignificant – hailing him from galaxies away. The TARDIS continued to beep for minutes at a time and the Master let it. Who was he to listen to the orders of a lesser being?

Besides, the beeping was something new. He needed that, every once in a while.

“You bastard.”

The Master stilled his tapping, impressed. How the human managed to get passed the secured line of a TARDIS was too good a mystery to ignore.

“Wow, such big words from an ape,” The Master said, resuming his tapping, “I’m honestly, truly impressed. I mean, getting passed my TARDIS’s defenses? I’m concerned I’m getting lenient in my old age. Maybe… I should fix that.”

“I don’t need another monologue from you,” The human – _Jack! He remembered –_ replied, “I need one thing, and I will not be taking no as an answer.”

The Master laughed. Honestly! That was the funniest thing he had ever heard! The _audacity_ of this human was overwhelming!

“You owe us!”

Ah, Yasmin Khan, the Doctor’s _pet._ It was coming together now. What, was the Doctor too cowardly to call him herself? How stupidly ridiculous of her.

“Owe you?” He questioned, sneering at the picture of the insignificant girl in front of him, “What could give you that frightful idea? Owe you? The only thing I owe _you,_ Yasmin Khan, is a slow death. I could make it fun, I promise. Really elongate it!”

He waited…And waited. But the Doctor made no comment. Was she not with them?

“The Doc’s in trouble.”

The Master rolled his eyes, unconcerned. “And? Wait! Don’t tell me! She’s fallen and can’t get up? I mean, she _is_ getting up there in age. A billion or so years in a confession dial would do that to a person, even someone as _great_ as the Doctor.”

“Billions of years?” Someone asked, the youngest male of the Doctor’s companions, but he was hushed by the other pets. How boring. He would have loved to spill the dear Doctor’s secrets.

“The Doctor’s TARDIS found me, pulled me right out from where I was standing,” The ‘leader’ of the group, Jack started, “But the Doctor was no where to be found.”

The Master’s interest peeked. It had been a long time since he heard of a TARDIS piloting itself. “Go on. You finally have my full attention, I promise. Well, maybe a bit less. Honestly, it doesn’t take much to listen to you lot.”

The Master could picture the look of fury on Yasmin Khan’s face. It was glorious.

“It picked us up too,” Ryan Sinclair continued, “And then it just…Spun around? All of the panels were moving, and there’s these…Circles everywhere, and they keep changing.”

He waited. Apparently, there was something that they dreaded saying.

“And…?” He asked, rocking on his feet.

“We got this…Message – transmission. And somehow…I knew that the TARDIS wanted to call you.”

This was exhausting. No matter how desperate he was to cause more havoc in her life, it wasn’t worth this. “ _And?”_

“We’ll just…Can the TARDIS send it to you?”

The Master rolled his eyes. Honestly, must he do everything? He went over to his console, flipping the necessary levers, wondering why the Doctor’s TARDIS was allowing such a connection. Her TARDIS never liked him, never liked _anything_ related to Gallifrey. It was practically a miracle that her circuits were easily connecting to his own TARDIS.

The ‘circles’ the human had described came in first. Gallifreyan words swirled and changed, none of them positive. ‘Danger.’ ‘Harm.’ ‘Death.’ Now his interest was truly peaked.

Finally, whatever message the humans were too scared to show him arrived, blinking obnoxiously at him. How typical of the Doctor – go big or go home, indeed. He almost smiled at the familiarity.

He opened it without preamble, and instantly regretted it.

Screaming. Her, the Doctor, screaming. It echoed loudly in his TARDIS, vibrating against his skull as he made a shaky turn at shutting it off _and missing_. She was _in pain,_ sobbing in the next sentence as another scream was ripped from her mouth. It was more excruciating than the Master ever thought it would be.

The four drumbeats of war, the ones he had longed for, gone two regenerations ago, came roaring back to life. It made its glorious return, the sound of it harboring every cruel plot he had ever done. The need to wring the life out of the being that dared touched the Doctor came stronger than ever before.

He locked onto the Doctor’s TARDIS, piloting faster than he ever had. He parked just outside her, annoyingly on Earth, throwing open her doors without any warning. The humans jumped back in fright, the girl screaming, but he ignored it.

The TARDIS herself greeted him as if he was an old friend. Her core came to life, shifting and moving, glowing red as his hands found her telepathic circuits. “Hello, old girl.” He greeted, the TARDIS’s worry coming to life among his own.

It felt glorious. His own TARDIS hadn’t been with him long enough to form such a connection. This TARDIS, older than time itself with the journeys to prove it, was so in sync with its pilot that it responded to him almost as if she was a Time Lord herself.

The humans could never understand how much a home this was for the Doctor.

The TARDIS’s emotions glanced over his mind, _worried-vengeful-anger-scared,_ and then she was moving, displaying a set of coordinates.

“A prison break,” He said, smiling widely, his teeth bared, the drums of war loud around him, “Perfect.”

The humans, for once, were on his side for every part of his plan.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The fact that he had to stay on the TARDIS was killing him.

Though he took immense pride in his work, it had earned him a bit of a reputation. His picture, even of this face, was everywhere. It was especially in Judoon systems. He wouldn’t be able to go down there with the humans, the security cameras would pick him up immediately.

He wouldn’t be able to find the person responsible for the Doctor’s pain – he couldn’t kill them, torture them, make them regret that they were alive. It seemed like a cruel twist of fate – the universe’s way of telling him to be _good._

It took the humans far too long to make it pass the first level of security. How the Doctor managed to deal with beings _this_ stupid was beyond him – they were just so _slow._

He pulled at his hair, hard. He weighed his options, wondering what sort of repercussions the timeline would have if went against his plan and teleported down there. It _was_ a prison, did they really care if someone killed them all?

He hit the console with the palm of his hand, much to the TARDIS’s annoyance, _knowing_ it was too risky. He could feel the probably of failure increasing if he did it.

“We found her!”

The Master stilled, relief rushing through him. Good, that was good. Was that good? He hated the Doctor.

He loved her.

“Get to the transport mat.” He demanded, watching from the TARDIS screens as four red, blinking dots made their way through the prison. If these idiots messed this up, he would destroy them piece by piece – make them watch as he hurt one of them.

It would cheer him up, at the very least. 

The moment the four dots made it to the transport mat, he slammed down on the lever, sending his coordinates onto the vortex manipulator he had thrown together. It was five million light years away from the prison, and just nearly two thousand years into the past. They wouldn’t have a chance of finding them. The TARDIS would make sure of it more than himself.

They appeared in a flash of four blinding blue lights. The old man collapsed against the younger one’s side, obviously unable to handle the disgusting use of time travel. But he barely had eyes for them.

The Doctor, pale and skinnier than should be possible, weightless in the arms of the human. She was coughing harshly, unable to breathe. She was worse than he could have ever imagined. The human placed the Doctor on the ground, laying her on her back, offering useless reassurances that she was okay. How _stupid._

“Back up. All of you, _get out of my way_.”

The girl stood in front of him, arms crossed. No matter how weak she was compared to himself, she was under the Doctor’s protection. He didn’t dare harm her, but he very much considered forcing sleep onto her. He opened his mouth, ready to threaten her with just that, when a voice stopped him.

_“Koschei.”_

The threatening words died on his tongue. He stilled, looking towards her as she feebly opened her eyes. There was blood on her lips, her breathes almost inaudible, yet she looked at him like he was the one that hung the stars in the sky.

The girl moved away without a word, not that he even noticed. He kneeled next to his greatest friend, suddenly overwhelmed. He didn’t know what to focus on, how fix what those monsters had done to her. Was she meant to regenerate?

He glanced down at her chest, getting a glimpse of a surgical scar that started from one collarbone all the way to the next. He kept calm, knowing that anger would do nothing, but made sure to catalogue the amount of hurt he would bring to the person who did this.

He needed to get her to the infirmary. Now. He went to move her, but as soon as he hand made its way under her head, she whispered something.

“Hurt.”

He froze, scared that his mental walls had failed him. Had she felt his pain? ““I know, love,” He said, trying to be gentle. She deserved that. “I know you’re hurt. I’m going to fix it.”

Lies, it was all lies.

“No.”

He looked to her, to her closed eyes, and felt true fear as she brought her hand up to his face, her thumb running over his scar. His breathe froze in his lungs, stiller than he had ever been in that moment. Despite his inner protests, he found himself leaning into her touch, letting her fingers comb his hair.

She was so fragile. Her arm shook with the effort, her face forming a grimace. He grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together, keeping her steady, unwilling to think of what this action was. Was she saying goodbye?

And then…Fire.

Regeneration energy blazed hot on her skin, slowly coming to life. He knew the fear that it could bring – how terrifying it was to go from dying to _alive_ in the blink of a second. He continued to hold her hand, squeezing tightly, hoping that it would be a fast one.

Only to watch in shock as her energy traveled to _him,_ his face lighting up – cells dying and then instantly replicating. He gasped, unable to let go of her even if he wanted to. Just when he thought he couldn’t take another second, the burning stopped. Her arm went weightless in his hand, and he was forced to let her go, wondering how she had even thought to do such an act _for him._

He went to – he didn’t know, hold her, thank her, kill her – but then he noticed how still she was.

Her hearts weren’t beating.

The TARDIS moved before himself, glowing and changing, crying out as she banged harshly on his mental walls, _wailing._ He looked towards his oldest friend, her eyes closed, peaceful in the most horrific way.

He would die before he let the Doctor’s final breath this mundane – no, the Doctor deserved her last moments in an inferno so hot that the universe had to twist and turn for her, through the act stars dying and being reborn. The universe had to _tremble_ at the Doctor’s death.

He picked her up, ignoring the panicking humans, and ran, faster than he had ever done before, turning into the first door the TARDIS provided.

He put her on the bed, already rushing to get the required medical equipment. He put electrodes on her temples, two others on her hearts, barely aware that he had he put her on display, only in a plain sports bra, in front of the other humans.

“Out!” Yasmin Khan was saying, pushing the other men out of the doorway. He didn’t care, didn’t even realize that the girl stayed, the Doctor was more important. 

He watched as the screens came to life, the steady, buzzing hum of the monitor’s telling him that _something_ was very wrong. He touched the Doctor’s temple, searching mentally for a sign of life.

_Stay with me. Please stay with me, Theta._

There was nothing – no knock against his metaphoric walls, no hint of life. He closed his eyes, putting their foreheads together. _Waiting._

And then, a spark.

_…Always._

His hearts stilled, eyes snapping open. Over the girl’s gasp, he watched as the monitors came back to life, the lines of two heartbeats suddenly beating. In another moment, the Doctor moved, taking in a harsh, ugly gulp of air. She spasmed on the bed but quickly fell back down on it, eyes still shut.

She was going to be okay.

He would make sure of it.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

She was warm.

It was the very first thing she noticed. She was so _warm._ The chill in her bones that had become her everyday life was suddenly gone. Instead, she felt weightless and comfortable, nearly invincible and she laid in her solace. She laid still for minutes on end, her body no longer screaming, and enjoyed the dream while it lasted.

The Doctor knew that she would be woken up soon, lead cruelly back down to table, and she didn’t want her dream to be ruined by someone pulling her up by her hair.

She opened her eyes, blinking as lights, very bright lights, assaulted his vision. She groaned, her face shifting against her pile of rags… No, that wasn’t the measly things she called blankets that she was used to. Against her face with a familiar feeling of her pillow back on her TARDIS. She _knew_ that pillow, had laid her head against its perfect softness one too many times.

“No.” She whispered, feeling worse as the universe teased her with such a vision. That wasn’t _fair –_ to have such a simple thing as a pillow thrown in her face just before hellfire’s claws racked against her skin in the form of forced regeneration.

_“Doctor?”_

Her hearts stilled. She knew that voice – she had always known that voice. Every regeneration, every face, every time they re-met, she _knew_ that voice.

A hand, _a soft hand,_ slowly and _oh so loving,_ made its way around her wrist. Fingertips lightly touched her palm and, eventually, began to lace together with her fingers. Still, so light, yet strong in a way she remembered.

“Tell me you’re real.” She whispered, unwilling to open her eyes for fear it wasn’t, “Please tell me you’re really here.”

The hand squeezed her own, reassuring in a way that she had missed.

“I’m here.” The Master said, and _oh how she had missed that voice. No matter the hurts that occurred before this year of hell, it was worth it to hear his voice._

She opened her eyes, finally, her eyes on her oldest friend’s face. He looked…Exhausted. His usually perfectly put together ensemble of confidence was carved away with the unstyled hair and wrinkled shirt. He was beautiful.

“How?” She asked him, needing to know.

The Master said nothing. Instead, she could _feel_ him pushing against his mind, showing her images of Jack Harkness and her fam, of the distress signal her TARDIS had released, and of healing him. She felt his rage, his desire to burn whoever did this to her to beyond ash, and she felt how…

How truly alone he felt after her found out about her past in the matrix – how lost he felt to know that the person he loves( _d_ ) was so unattainable. How devasting it was to have the only person to understand him, the only person who he had ever cared about.

He flinched, physically and mentally, and withdrew from her mind.

She looked at him, trying so desperately hard to understand what had gone wrong. “A year in hell,” She said, softly, “and the only thing I could think about were the people I had failed. And how I failed _you_ the most.”

Instead of the usual anger she received when she spoke of their past, he became silent – still. It reminded her of his past regeneration, of Missy, who was always constantly moving and planning. Those were Missy’s eyes that stared back at him, full of hope and of fear.

“I don’t care about my past,” She said, this time squeezing his hand, “I only ever cared about _our_ past, and the memories we had. Master, you…”

“No matter how many lifetimes I had, _you_ will always be my greatest friend.”

She expected shouting and destruction of objects. She expected him to rage at her, to tell her how stupidly sentimental she was. She expected him to leave, to never come back and vow never to save her again. She expected death threats, and harmful vengeance to her friends.

What she didn’t expect, in any timeline, was for him to bring her hand to his mouth, tenderly, and kiss her palm with reverence that she didn’t deserve.

Now, it truly felt like freedom.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Her fam, along with the infamous Jack Harkness, was a welcomed surprise.

They treated her delicately, but also as they always did. She smiled and hugged them all, officially cleared by the Master to stand for short periods of times. She loved her humans, always shinning brighter than the stars she took them to see, and she was even more thankful that they were willing to risk it all to save her.

Her TARDIS missed her too, going by the colors of the rainbows that went swirling in her core. She had laughed loudly at that, putting her hands against her console as she greeted her friend. The TARDIS was, if the feelings of _content-stubborn-love_ were anything to go back, happy to have her back.

Her group of companies never asked about her imprisonment. Again, she was so thankful to have such a compassionate group to rely on. Though she had a day of recovery in the TARDIS’s infirmary, she wasn’t sure if she was ready to tell them – maybe she would never tell them.

It was Jack, of course, that kept the conversation flowing between all of them easily. Both her fam and Jack swapped stories of their adventures; the fam very curious to hear that she _truly_ was a different person when Jack traveled with her.

“Yeah, doc,” Graham said, looking at the image of her tenth regeneration that Jack provided, “We just figured you were joking, right son?”

Ryan nodded, eyes also not leaving the image, “Properly weird.”

She had to laugh. Humans and their gender norms always confused her.

When it became late, and she could hardly keep her eyes open, she excused herself to her room, the Master’s careful eyes quickly following in step as she waved at them to continue without her. It was when she made it outside her door that she felt the crushing weight of everything that had been done to her.

It came to her suddenly, a fierce rage that nearly consumed her and brought her to her knees. The need collapse, to take all of her anger and toss it away was so strong that she was scared.

It was the Master’s hand in hers that stopped her. Instead, tears sprung to her eyes in the most vicious cycle of moods.

“He killed me,” She told him, fingers unconsciously caressing her scared stomach. She could just feel the raised skin of scar tissue, numb as she touched it, “He killed me, over and over again, and never enough to fully regeneration and I just…”

_She wanted them to die slowly._

She fell into him without warning, her arms wrapping around him tightly as she wept for all that she lost – for the anger she didn’t but _could_ understand, for the violence she wanted to inflict on one soul. She wanted to rage against the universe and throw just as much hurt back at it as it had done to her.

And yet, in the Master arms, all she wanted to do was stay there forever and enjoy the warmth.

The Master, after all these years, finally stood with her.

They were happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was...The HARDEST thing to write. The first chapter flowed so well, but this took EVERY SINGLE THING I HAD to write. I hope it meets expectations! 
> 
> Stay safe! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm...I'll just...Leave this here, shall I? Goodness, I'm not sure why this got so dark. I wanted hurt AND comfort, and we barely got comfort...Maybe I'll have some more comfort in another chapter? Who knows.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Stay safe! <3


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